I said my goodbyes to Tim who was leaving for Las Vegas and decided to head down to Barton Springs, a natural spring outside of town. Looking at the map, the distance didn't seem to long so I didn't bother with public transport. Mistake. It was at least 35* and a good hours walk. At least the walk was picturesque, walking along Ladybird lake and passed the Congress Bridge underneath which millions of bats live. It is one thing I have noticed about America, that there is a lot more park space owing to the sheer size of the country. When I eventually did make it to the spring, several pounds lighter due to water loss, I was slightly disappointed. This was probably not entirely due to the spring, as it was pretty enough, but due to the fact that I didn't have any swimming trunks or towel. It probably would have been a good cure for my grumpiness.
I walked (I clearly hadn't learned my lesson) back towards town but I stopped off for lunch in the Shady Grove restaurant, recommended to me by Tim. I sat on a table directly facing the industrial-sized air conditioners and ordered a large ice-tea. The waitress told me it was the coldest table in the restaurant and that I could move if I wanted. I didn't. It wasn't cold enough. For my delicate rose skin, anything over 20* is unacceptable. I wouldn't be lying if I said i was either verbally or mentally complaining about the heat every 20 seconds for 2 weeks. To eat I ordered the days special, a chicken, bacon, avocado, salad and olive tapenade sandwich. When it comes to food in America, I have the same thought process. My favourite food are burgers so I always look towards ordering them, but then my traveller self says I should try different things, be adventurous, eat local food. However, I then think to myself, I am a connoisseur of burgers, what happens if this is the best burger in the world and I miss it! I never would forgive myself. So in always order the burger. And by god, was it worth it. I won't forget that one in a hurry.
After all the walking, I felt fairly tired so I decided to mentally relax a little, and I went to the cinema and caught a 3-D screening of The Great Gatsby. Overall I thought it was a good film, well worth a watch. The acting, particularly Leo and the stunning Carey Mulligan was outstanding. I did however feel that the party scenes were too extravagant, which made it more of a film about the visual, rather than the content. I do have to admit that it is a long time since I have read the book but I feel that the character development was lacking (although to be fair, that is hard to achieve in a medium as short as film). Despite this I did enjoy it and I look forward to reading the book again as soon as I have finished 'The Brothers Karamazov' by Fyodor Dostoevsky (if its anything like 'Crime and Punishment', one of my favourite books, I don't think I will be disappointed).
In the evening the hostel had organised a bar-crawl which I thought would be perfect to tag along to as I could meet more people from the hostel as well as getting the low-down of the best places to drink in Austin. In all there were about 12 of us, a mix of many nationalities (English, Australian, Danish, German, Turkish, Argentinian, and American). Over the course of the night I got chatting to a lot of them. Special mention to Erasmus, a Dane, for our conversations on tennis; Alistair, a Brit, for our mutual drink-buying (I had met him in New Orleans originally); and Charlie, another Brit, for her talks on ship-selling (and her looks). After some drinking and a few games of table-tennis we headed to a '60s club for some dancing to the Beatles. I tried to get the DJ to play some Velvet-Underground bunt apparently this isn't good dance music. I was angry at the time, but he was probably right. Eventually we ended up a bar called the 'White Horse' to listen to 'The Best Country Band In Texas'. After convincing a Texan girl to give me some dancing lessons (in which I thoroughly embarrassed not only myself, but the whole nation) I headed back to the hostel.
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